In our Classics Revisited series, we review London’s best established luxury restaurants
I recently had the best lamb chop of my life cooked for me by Vineet Bhatia at Kama, the chef’s counter in the spiffing new Dining Hall at Harrods. The last time I saw Bhatia was for the £105 tasting menu at Vineet Bhatia London, which he closed one week after it was awarded its Michelin star in 2017.
At the time I asked a terrifyingly smart friend who lives off Sloane Square why she thought Vineet Bhatia London had not been a success. The reason, she said, was that “we locals only ever want to go to Motcombs”.
Motcombs has occupied its plum spot on Motcomb Street in Belgravia since 1982, the same year that Peter York published The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook.
Anyone who wonders what happened to the book’s archetypal Sloane couple of Caroline and Henry now that they are approaching pensionable age should pay a visit to Motcombs, which proves that Sloane, like Goth, is the style tribe that refuses to die – or pay £105 for a tasting menu.
Instead, Motcombs offers a reassuring line-up of tried-and-trusted classics – the sort of menu that wouldn’t look out of place in an early edition of Delia Smith and where vegan cuisine is consigned to the status of a lone ‘special’.
But while the menu might read with the comforting internationalism of The Ivy – there’s Thai red chicken curry and vodka penne as well as shepherd’s pie and sausage and mash – there’s an eccentric quality to many of the dishes which, as at all of the most idiosyncratic of restaurants, only makes the oddness all the more charming.
From the starters, Salad Phillip caught my eye. Who was Phillip, I asked the waiter, assuming that since we were in Belgravia the answer would be ‘Prince’. “I think he was my cousin,” was the fabulously oblique response.
Whoever he was, we owe Phil a debt of gratitude for this jumbo-sized jumble of prawns, scallops and bacon dressed in creamy vinaigrette.
Flaked Cornish crab is served in a vaguely Asian manner with slices of red chilli and slivers of spring onion, and borne aloft on a boat-shaped curve of fried bread so that it looks like a float in a parade. Veal Milanese, meanwhile, comes topped with spaghetti in tomato sauce, like something you might serve at home when you realise that there’s nothing else in the cupboard, only to be pleasantly surprised by the unexpected success of the finished product.
It is cooking that is about as fashionable as red chinos and pie-crust collars, and the sort of thing you can only get away with when you have a clientele of loyal regulars who would raise a mutiny were any of it taken off the menu.
In any case, food is not really the point of Motcombs. The basement dining room plays host to live jazz, though I prefer to sit upstairs, not only because I hate jazz but also because there’s the sort of bar where a cocktail means a stiff martini, the well-priced wine list allows for liberal imbibing and in summer you can watch the comings and goings of royal couturier Stewart Parvin and king of cobblers Christian Louboutin, to say nothing of London’s poshest Waitrose.
Wherever you sit, you’re treated to service from grey-haired waiters who have more character than an entire season of Game of Thrones.
Around the time Peter York published the Sloane Ranger Handbook, he was also popularising the word 'foodie' to describe another tribe with its own highly codified modes of conduct. Motcombs, thankfully, is not somewhere that could ever be described as foodie. But like most of its clientele, this oldie is a goodie.
Who to take
Hooray Henry and Nice Caroline.
What to order
Salad Phillip, vodka penne and grilled steak sandwich are the trio of house classics.
Motcombs, 26 Motcomb Street, London, SW1X 8JU motcombs.co.uk
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